Didcot Railway Centre is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Oxfordshire today, but until June 1965 it was a working steam locomotive depot, the beating heart of a small railway town then in Berkshire.

Among the shed staff in the dying days of steam on Britain's railways was a trainee fitter called Patrick Kelly, who has now written a book, Didcot Steam Apprentice, about his career on what staff still called the Great Western Railway, despite nationalisation in 1948.

Patrick Kelly was born into a Didcot railway family. His father worked at the locomotive shed and his mother was a carriage cleaner, while both his brothers were loco fitters.

And he found a new family on the railway as well, forging friendships with his fellow apprentices that have endured to this day.

The book takes us through six tumultuous years for Britain's railways, from Easter 1960, when the author left St Birinus' Boys School to join the railway, to his resignation six years later, in which time Dr Beeching had taken his axe to the network and diesels had replaced the last GWR steam locos.

While steam often conjures up a romantic image of bygone days, this book is a reminder of the difficult, dirty and sometimes dangerous work involved in keeping Didcot shed's Hall Manor and Grange class 4-6-0s and pannier tank engines in working order, the late-night call-outs to deal with train crashes, or the struggle to stay warm and stop locos freezing up through the bitter winters of the early 1960s.

There are also tales of pranks which earned the author and his friends a dressing-down from their managers - and some the higher-ups never found out about.

The book features more than 140 photographs, most never published before, charting the author's career at Didcot and stints at Reading and Old Oak Common shed in London, the GWR works at Swindon and the final few months of his railway career at Oxford.

  • Didcot Steam Apprentice, by Patrick Kelly, is published by Silver Link Publishing, priced £17.99.